The grief associated with loss is the most misunderstood of human emotions.  I think the hardest thing for people to understand is that there is no degree to loss.  There is either loss or there is no loss and the only thing different is how we each individually process our grief.  It’s been over four years now since we lost our baby to a tragic umbilical cord accident a week before his scheduled c-section.  However, there are still moments when the grief kind of sneaks up on me and rarely a day goes by in which I don’t have at least a fleeting thought about Jackson or what he would have been like as a little boy.  Today I was hiking across campus to run an errand when I suddenly started thinking of Randy Pausch and how bad it sucks that such a good person should die at such a young age.  I started thinking about his kids and how some people try to hide their illness from their children and don’t want them to see them sick.  This of course got me to thinking about Randy’s kids and how they were there at his side and had the honor and privilege to be with their dad when he passed and could see how peaceful he must have been in death.  Then I started thinking how oddly therapeutic it is to see a loved after they have passed and how it almost seems to defy logic.  And that’s how it happens:  The grief blows in like a warm gentle breeze and suddenly you’re back in that hospital room with your wife holding your stillborn baby and remembering every detail and just how GOOD it felt to hold him and feel his weight in your arms and see what he looked like.  In most repects that 10-15 minutes we spent with Jackson was one of the most profound moments of my life and I’m so thankful that we set aside our own fears and doubts about seeing our stillborn baby and took the nurses advice.  In another moment I felt a hand on my shoulder and someone whispering “it will all be okay” and just as it blew in the grief blew out on the same warm gust of breeze.  I find it almost ironic that the very best description of death I have found so far is in one of my favorite movies:

Pippin: I didn’t think it would end this way.
Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path . . . one that we must all take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass…
Gandalf: …And then you see it.
Pippin: What, Gandalf? See what?
Gandalf: White shores . . . and beyond. A far green country, under a swift sunrise.
Pippin: Well, that isn’t so bad.
Gandalf: No… No it isn’t.